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Local jury to hear cyanide death case

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A local jury will hear the case against a Western Pennsylvania medical researcher accused of having killed his neurologist wife with cyanide.

Attorneys for Dr. Robert Ferrante asked Allegheny County President Judge Jeffrey Manning on Tuesday to vacate his earlier order to bring in a jury from another county for his criminal homicide trial.

Authorities allege that the 65-year-old University of Pittsburgh researcher laced an energy drink with cyanide before giving it to his wife, 41-year-old Dr. Autumn Klein, in April 2013. She died three days later.

A jury was to be chosen in Dauphin County and bused in because of extensive pretrial publicity in the Pittsburgh area. But the judge said Tuesday that the case hadn’t drawn the same level of “community outrage” as some other recent high-profile cases.